


Okus Pokus

by vands38



Category: Campaign (Podcast), Illimat (Board Game)
Genre: (bold of me to assume Travis has a Character), Backstory, Card Games, Character Study, Decemberist references, Drinking, Magic, Magical Realism, Other, Travis has issues, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000, actually you know what?, also, campaign star wars references because i am trash now and always, inspired by the backstory in the GenCon episodes, luminaries, mention of OG Margaret/Travis, spoilers up to and including episode 80, that good asmr shit, that stays in travis’s possession after the game with the forest queen, the goopening, the okus is a very literal piece of your soul, travis has abandonment issues, two immortal dumbasses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27121744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vands38/pseuds/vands38
Summary: Travis wins Gable’s name in a game of cards and spends the next hundred years trying to get rid of it. The thing is, Gable’s little bird-shaped okus doesn’twantto be discarded. Gable’s okus has a will of its own.
Relationships: Gable/Travis Matagot
Comments: 14
Kudos: 29
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2020





	Okus Pokus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prim_the_Amazing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/gifts).



> content warnings: gore (description of the goopening), drinking, enslaved peoples (the Forest Queen is a dick, yo), canonical deaths, fire, near-death experiences, sexual references
> 
> notes: istg this was going to have a very serious title but as soon as I thought of 'okus pokus' I couldn’t _not_ use it. this is a very belated Fandom Trumps Hate gift for Prim – I had the idea for the longest time but it just didn’t want to turn into _story_. hopefully the end result at least makes some sense! basically, I loved the idea of Gable’s name being a very literal thing that Travis has to carry around with him and it grew from there. inspired by the Gable/Travis backstory as told in the GenCon episodes but there are spoilers up to and including Episode 80. also, uh, my memory of canon is not the best so I apologise if I misremembered anything. I also know approximately nothing about the game of Illimat but wrote about it anyway, go figure.

Travis wins Gable’s name in a game of cards.

It’s a shitty fucking prize. I mean, Travis barely even _knows_ this seven-foot probably-not-human being but now here he is, stuck with a bird-shaped okus that whispers their deepest darkest secrets at night. And, hey, it’s not that that’s not a good time and all but he _just_ lost his mortality and he’s plotting his escape from the Forest Queen and basically Gable’s real name and Gable in general are just very, _very_ low on his list of priorities.

Travis pockets the okus and moves on with his life. I mean, it’s just a _name_ , how inconvenient could it possibly be?

I.

The Forest Queen swipes his okus from the board with the end of her curved branch and Travis watches in horror as this piece of his soul – his _mortality_ – is placed in her clawed hands.

The Queen twirls the geometric wooden craving between her long and spindly fingers in wicked contemplation before her cracked lips curve into a sinister smile and she whispers to the okus a word of magic; a single word that makes a shiver run down his spine.

The spell is so powerful that he feels every it in his very soul. It feels like something is being ripped from his _chest_. His hair stands on end like a static charge as the okus bursts to blue flame in her hands. The light grows and grows until it becomes a glowing orb before them. Until, eventually, when the light becomes unsustainable, the Queen flicks her branches outwards and the force of her magic sends the remaining cards skittering and cascading down around them.

He exchanges a nervous glance with Gable at the display of power. The tall being is still kneeling at the table with himself and the woodsman, as if they are also caught under her spell; unable to leave.

A card falls to his feet: The Changeling.

 _Transformation. New beginnings_. _A sign of transition_. Travis huffs a laugh. The luminaries are never wrong, it seems.

He turns back to the Forest Queen. The light from her hands has gone, and the wooden okus has turned dark with the flames. It is not as shapeless anymore. Under her magic, his okus has transformed into a bird.

Panicked, Travis runs his very human hands down his very human body, and turns to Gable for reassurance. “Please tell me I’m not a bird. I don’t want to be a bird. _Gable_ , you have to tell me if I’m a bird –”

Gable opens their mouth, gormless as ever, but before they can respond, the Forest Queen cuts through them with a laugh that sounds like a murder of crows fleeing a gunshot. “Oh no, darling. You are far too pretty to turn into a beast, and far too immortal for that matter. I’ve chosen another path for you.”

“Oh,” Travis says in instinctive relief before the full meaning of her sentence penetrates. “Thank you? I think?”

The Queen smirks before turning away and placing the trophy amongst her others. Travis gulps at the implication as his bird becomes one amongst an entire army of wooden animals, stretching as far as the eye can see.

“Don’t fret, little one,” she says. “You will be in my service for a long time. You will learn your path. And soon – very soon – you will witness your immortality.”

Travis swallows his nerves at the ominous statement. His hands shake as he stoops to collect the fallen cards.

“Psst,” he hears from beside him, and looks up to find Gable handing him the Union. He accepts it under the watchful eye of the Forest Queen. Her gaze unsettles him, deep and penetrating, like she can see everything he tries to hide. “You okay?” Gable whispers, because Gable has no such survival instincts.

Travis pockets the cards and feels the unfamiliar okus lying beside them. Gable’s instead of his. Metallic instead of wooden. A name, instead of mortality. Call him a cynic but that’s a shitty fucking deal. Gable should have coughed up a better prize, and come up with a better okus for that matter – it’s another fucking bird but a pretty dove or something instead of the corvid that the Forest Queen has shaped his to be. It feels foreign in his possession and he doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s going to do with it, but whatever, he’s got to escape this place before he can even contemplate –

“If you play by my rules,” the Forest Queen speaks, and Travis realises that he’s just been staring at Gable this whole time like some kinda freak, “then you will eventually be permitted to leave. Try to escape and I will keep you forever. I will plant your roots in my soil until you become my forest. You will spend your immortality trapped inside a wooden cage, incapable of speech, incapable of movement. I will keep your mind though. Until you lose it from insanity, that is.”

Travis feels sick as he wonders just how many of the trees in her forest were – are? – _people_ and how long they’ve been rooted in place.

“I wouldn’t advise asking that question, Matagot. You wouldn’t like the answer.”

Her kaleidoscope green eyes bore into his as she speaks and he knows without a doubt that she is capable of reading his mind. He will not be able to trick her if she can read his mind.

Her mouth twists into something even more sinister, and Travis, with a lead weight of fear, begrudgingly accepts his fate as her servant.

–

Travis jokes, and flirts, and hopes that Gable doesn’t notice that he is staying against his will. They look at him as they are parted though; their pale eyes wide and pleading as if they actually want to help. Gable is too innocent for this world if they yearn for such things. No. Travis is in this alone. He needs to remember that. He can’t go about thinking that some stranger – no matter how _nice_ , no matter how weird – will come and save him.

–

A servant locks him in the guest chambers. It’s nice as these things go. Still very foresty, still very creepy, and the bed made of leaves is probably crawling with more bugs than Travis can even imagine, but there _are_ less enchanted once-human animals staring at him in here so Travis is counting his blessings.

The Forest Queen’s departing words about his imminent display of immortality is ominous and daunting and he does not vibe with that at all. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be here, or what ‘service’ the Queen will demand from him, but it’s clear that they are now bound together with no hope of escape.

He paces the locked room, for minutes, or hours, until his skin begins to crawl.

The warm rays of light from the sunset shine through the logged walls and then when the itch beneath his skin becomes too much to bear, the first bone breaks.

It’s excruciating and unnatural and horrifying. For endless minutes, there is nothing but distant screaming and crunching and gargling, until, eventually, feathers begin to sprout between the mangled flesh. He falls to his knees (are those knees?) and remembers the Illimat board they had played on, and the turn of the seasons and the luminary card that fell before him and knows that there is only one kind of immortality that the Forest Queen can give.

She made him a Changeling.

–

The pain, eventually, subsides.

Travis opens his eyes to a different world view – wider, slower, more colourful – and stretches his wings experimentally, feeling the tips of them brush against the floor. Everything around him seems impossibly big. His clothes seem to have vanished along with his human form, presumably absorbed by magic during the transformation, but there’s something else beside him. Something shiny.

He hops over on his new raven-feet and tilts his head to examine it.

It’s the damn okus. The metallic bird-shaped okus that he won from Gable. The piece of Gable’s soul that is now his to possess… their name; their secret. It must have fallen out of his pocket when the transformation started.

The okus stares up at him from the wooden floor; innocent, yet not. It calls to him. Whispers. It has a secret to tell.

It had tried to speak to him before, he recalls, but he’d wrapped it in a handkerchief and pocketed it as soon as he could; too impatient to play the Queen to listen to Gable’s soul. But now it calls to him, like a lighthouse to lost sailors, and he finds himself drawn ever closer...

If the Forest Queen accepted an okus enchanted with something as simple as a name then it must be important to Gable. An answer, perhaps, as to _what_ Gable is; who they are. There must be something about the name that is significant. Something that Travis now has the ability to _know_.

He taps it with his beak.

A bright flash and then –

 _Uriel_.

– a dark alley, a thousand eyes –

– rage; righteous fury –

– a chorus of screaming –

– a snarl of lips, a glint in the eye –

– the suffocating heat of flames surrounding them –

 _Uriel_.

The okus clatters to the floor. His wings flap in an attempt to flee. He is filled with an ancient deep terror that he cannot name.

Gable is an idiot; a bumbling fool, but Uriel… Uriel is _not_.

II.

It’s a curse, it has to be, is what Travis thinks the third time he crosses paths with Gable.

It’s been literally a hundred years with that damn okus burning his front pocket as he undertook task after task for the Forest Queen. He had finally escaped her clutches, felt the first lick of freedom and then, almost immediately, got captured by the Church of the Slain God.

Travis has fucked with destiny enough times to know that this is no accident. Travis would have been free of this rancid place _instantly_ if the luminaries hadn’t had a hand in this. No, as it is, Travis strongly suspects that destiny would like Travis to return Gable’s name to them before their death, and unfortunately for Travis, that meant he got to be imprisoned too.

Here’s the thing: Travis doesn’t want the fucking okus. He hates the damn thing. He hates the way it whispers to him at night and the way their name hangs over him like a shadow. He hates the terror it instills in him even now. He tried to trade it away and drink to forget it and bury the okus in the sand on some godforsaken island just to see what the fuck destiny would do with that – a tidal wave, is what happened, and the miraculous re-appearance of the okus in his hand the next morn. He even tried melting the damn thing in a fire only for it to stay perfectly formed even as the flame turned to ashes. For a good few years, he tried every possible way to get rid of it. And then, drunk and bitter, with the name ‘Uriel’ echoing through his head with fire and fury, a girl called Margaret took his hand and told him not to listen. She told him that everything would be okay.

What a lie that turned out to be. He lost her. He lost everything. But not the okus. Never the damn okus.

He’s been stuck with it this whole time.

When he first sees Gable imprisoned alongside him, he wants to hurl it at their stupid fucking face. He has fantasised about this moment for decades and if destiny wants them to have it so fucking badly then who cares, right? Gable should just take it and be done.

But, then, what kind of conman would he be if he just gave away such valuable information for free? Gable knows he has it, and Travis knows they want it. Travis just needs to wait until Gable has something valuable to offer him in return.

He’s waited a hundred years, he reasons, what’s a few more?

III.

It feels like the very next day when Gable corners him at a bar and asks him to join the Uhuru.

Travis, of course, has many better offers. He’s a wanted man, and in more ways than one. But then, he frowns and remembers the Union card he drew the night before when he asked the luminaries how to escape the bounty hunters. The card of two held hands that still reminds him of kneeling next to Gable on the forest floor under the watchful eye of the Forest Queen.

He looks up at his possible ally, and realises that the more time he spends with Gable, the more likely he is to uncover something worth bargaining for.

He agrees. Or, rather, he boards the Uhuru without a pass. Same thing.

–

Travis feels Gable’s cold and calculating eyes on him when he steps aboard; their aura heavy with trepidation. They don’t trust him. They likely suspect his motivations.

That’s fair; Travis is equally as suspicious about his decision. He’s here because of a card and an okus. A moment of desperation, no matter how he tries to sell it to himself.

It’s fine, he reassures himself, he doesn’t need Gable’s trust. He just needs their coin.

–

That night, Travis lies in his new bunk, twirling the bird over and over again in his hands, listening to the whisper that has not grown any less potent over the years. Sometimes he thinks he sees glimpses of a young boy – himself, perhaps? – reflected in those thousand eyes. Sometimes the rage that rattles around the okus spills into his dreams like a fire on a skyship; consuming everything it touches. Tonight, he digs beneath the rage. He finds that fragment of hurt underneath.

He didn’t used to understand it. He couldn’t reconcile the vengeful monster in the okus with the gentle giant that he knew outside of it. Then, he lost Margaret, and he understood all too well.

_Who did you lose, Gable?_

He wonders if they even remember, or if the okus took their memory of that too; if the only recollection of the events are these chaotic glimpses that were caught in the name.

He holds the warm metal wings between his fingers and turns it over, shifting the bird from one finger to the other as he would a card, and wonders when the feel of it became a comfort, even as its contents remained a horror.

It is the only possession that has been with him all this time, he realises. The one thing he’s had on nights of heartbreak and loss and destitution. The only constant in the ever changing life of a changeling. And it’s not even _his_.

IV.

Travis _infuriates_ Gable. He knows this. He _thrives_ on this. He loves that furrow in their brow and the crossed arms and that disapproving glare and he loves it so much that can’t resist raising their ire whenever he senses an opportunity.

A couple of days into their new crewmanship when he’s introduced to the Uhuru’s prized collection of griffins – in particular, a dashing white peacock – it presents the _perfect_ opportunity.

“Huh,” he says and waits for Gable to ask because Gable _always_ asks.

“What?” they snap.

Travis smirks – Gable is so predictable – as he inclines his head towards Lucas. “Remind you of someone?”

Travis had rescued Gable from their jail cell as a white bird and that’s not something that one tends to forget, even after dozens of years of separation. Gable frowns and then looks between Travis and the extravagant, majestic, extraordinary, white peacock and makes the most infuriated groan that Travis has _ever_ heard before turning tail and marching out of the aviary.

“Did you miss me?” Travis shouts after them. “It’s just I’ve never seen a better likeness –”

“Shut up, Travis.”

“So that’s a ‘yes’ then?”

“Shut _up,_ Travis!”

And then Gable is too far away to be heard and Travis just grins to himself surrounded by griffin shit and feathers. It’s probably not true in the slightest but the mere implication will likely haunt Gable for years.

He really ought to trade the okus for a griffin but he really has no use for a giant bird. At least, that’s what he tells himself. He’ll hang on for a little longer.

V.

Travis is on the Uhuru for a fortnight before they are first afforded shore leave. It’s a small town, and consequently the only place serving hard alcohol mid-afternoon also offers certain, more intimate, services. Travis isn’t interested and isn’t interested in explaining to Spit why he’s not interested so he ends up sitting at the bar of the brothel, nursing a whiskey sour, with the only other person who seems uninterested in their surroundings. Unfortunately, that person is Gable.

They catch each other’s eyes and Gable raises an eyebrow and before he knows it, they’re trading barbs in a way that is becoming habitual. He pretends when Gable calls him a ‘garbage trash man’ for the hundredth time that he doesn’t sense the fondness beneath. He pretends that he doesn’t enjoy their company in return. Travis has become very good at not paying attention to these things.

They drink and bicker and Gable refuses to play for okuses (hey, it was worth a try) and it’s all fine and dandy until Travis senses a familiar tingle at the base of his spine and knows that sunset must soon be on its way.

Travis glances out the frosted window to see his suspicions confirmed and downs the remains of his drink. “If you excuse me, I must find someone more bearable to talk to.” He shrugs on his trenchcoat and pockets his cards and is halfway out the barstool when Gable stretches an impossibly long leg out beside him, barring him from leaving.

He looks across to see Gable frowning, with their arms folded, looking very serious. “I know you’re a changeling, Travis. I’ve seen it. Multiple times.”

“Yes, yes,” he says, waving them off like the minor inconvenience they are; their entwined fates are impossible to forget when their okus lies in his pocket. “But I can hardly stay here unless you want to start an old-fashioned witch hunt, and in any case, I don’t know how you expect to have a drink with a…” he hesitates, trying to remember where he is and consequently what season it is. “A snake? I think I’m a snake.”

Gable turns their nose up. Obviously not their first choice of animal companion. “We’ll think of something. Come. I have a room.”

“You have…?” Travis asks, because Gable can’t possibly mean what he thinks they mean. “At the _brothel_?”

“No!” Gable says scandalised. “In the inn next door. Don’t be so – I can’t believe you’re so –”

But Travis just grins because, hey, free drinks. Gable makes the most offended face during the goopening and calls him all manner of things, but they don’t puke, and they don’t leave, which is more than he’d expected. The only alcohol Gable possesses is a bottle of black sludge called dengar but Gable pours him a bowl and he absorbs it the best he can in his current form and then, miraculously, they converse until the early hours of the morn.

Travis tries not to loiter on the fact that this is the first time since Margaret that someone has spent time with him after sunset. He tries not to think about whether or not Gable might be his friend.

VI.

Gable, admittedly, shifts a little in his priorities after that. It’s not that he _cares_ about Gable one way or the other – they’re still a massive bore and a colossal pain in the ass – but it’s a novelty that someone _knows_ who he is. He had spent his first weeks on the Uhuru conveniently taking nightwatch but now, sometimes, Gable will join him, or sit in the deserted kitchens and pour him a stiff drink.

Travis keeps trying to convince Gable to play cards for high stakes, and Gable keeps calling him an addict and a cheat (he supposes that one of those is true), until eventually, they give in and sigh, “If I play, will you finally stop nagging me? I don’t know why you’re so insistent on it in the first place seeing as I haven’t got anything worth winning.”

It’s mid-afternoon and they’re hunkering down in the cabin while the Uhuru passes through a storm. Captain Vale is outside with a couple of hardened deck hands but the rest of them shelter below, distracting themselves any way they can from the ominous creak of wood and the unsettling sway of the ship. Some are drinking, some are playing dice, some have snuck off to the kitchens to steal food (or the bunks for a quick tumble). And here he is, trying to extort Gable for a century-old okus.

Travis shrugs and kicks his feet up on a crate that only slides away at the next lurch of the ship. He puts his feet down again. And then up, to allow a bucket to pass through. At least the bench and table they occupy have been nailed down to the floor.

“Travis?”

Right, the okus. “I have something of yours, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Gable snorts. “I doubt that. I stopped wearing watches after you stole the last three.”

“I have your _name_.”

Gable frowns. “Yes… you do? Everyone does. It’s _Gable_. Travis, did you hit your head?”

Travis makes a strangled noise of frustration and buries his head in his hand. The ship lurches again. They both raise their legs to let various objects slide through. “My head is perfectly intact, thank you, but I’m starting to think that yours _isn’t_. A hundred years ago. A creepy forest. A cutesy metal bird that fell into my possession. Any of this ringing a bell in that big ‘ld dumb head of yours?”

He can see when Gable understands because their jaw drops open, and then closes again, and then opens. Another lurch of the ship. He hears the sound of someone retching. Gable looks just as pale.

“You look like you’re going to barf,” Travis states.

“I am _not_ going to –”

“Really? Because, no offence – okay, _some_ offence – but you look real gross right now.”

“Geez, thanks, Travis,” Gable retorts. At the next lurch of the ship, a bottle comes tumbling under their feet and Gable stoops to collect it.

“What are you doing?” Travis asks as Gable unscrews the cap and gulps straight from the bottle of dengar.

“I am not having this conversation sober,” Gable states, and Travis watches in horror as they drink a good bit of it before offering the bottle to Travis.

He takes it and doesn’t drink nearly as much as Gable but given their height difference it probably has much the same effect.

“You still have it,” Gable states, looking just as vacant as they did pre-dengar.

Travis suspects that they’re not talking about the bottle. He lets it roll away the next time the ship tilts. “I thought you knew,” he says. “I can’t get rid of it. It’s cursed or something.”

Gable grunts; their face still impassive.

Travis rolls his eyes and kicks his feet up onto Gable’s bench opposite him; much sturdier than a crate. “You’re telling me, all this time, I’ve been trying to extort you for something that you didn’t even know I _had_?”

“Why did you think I would _know_?” Gable asks, just as frustrated. “I assumed that you’d lost it, or forgotten it. That _she_ took it from you. Or you gambled it away, or… I don’t know. It’s just been so _long_. Like… a hundred years long. How do you still have it?”

“I told you. It’s cursed. You don’t think I _tried_ to get rid of it? It’s fucking creepy, Gable. It’s terrifying. I don’t want it.”

“Then give it to me.”

Travis winces. “I… can’t.”

“What do you mean you _can’t_?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Then explain it to me,” Gable says with a commanding edge to their voice that causes Travis to shudder involuntarily. The voice. It reminds him of the name trapped inside the okus.

Gable’s face shifts in front of him; anger dissipating just as fast as it had come. It’s just Gable. Kind, noble, _stupid_ Gable.

Travis exhales loud and purposeful; the fear fading with the memory of fire and feather.

“Sorry,” Gable murmurs.

Travis swallows and nervously glances around them but no one seems to have noticed the sudden intensity radiating from their distant table. “Do you remember what’s inside?”

“My name?”

“No,” Travis says, closing his eyes to try and keep his breathing under control. His heart is pounding, his lungs are struggling for breath, he feels the ghost of fire on his skin. “The things… with that name. Who you were. Do you remember?”

Gable’s jaw clenches. Their eyes grow sad. “I remember. Pieces of it. Enough of it.”

Travis nods. The ship creaks, and tilts, there are muffled shouts from above and the pounding of hail against the hull. “I can’t _give_ it to you,” Travis murmurs at last, “because I think it’s become mine. I think you have to win it from me.”

“Wait…” Gable says, with a frown. “How can that happen? It’s _my_ okus.”

“Yeah,” Travis says with a huff of laughter, “it _was_ , but it’s been mine for a hundred-odd years. I’ve become attached, or _it’s_ become attached, I don’t know, but I _feel_ it now, like it’s mine.”

“Aw, Travis!” Gable says, reaching over to nudge Travis with their humongous hands. “That’s so sweet! I didn’t know you felt that way –”

“I _don’t_ ,” Travis snaps. “I hate the okus, and I hate you. Just so we’re clear. I’m just saying that I can’t give it to you. I tried last month –”

“Awww!”

“– and it felt… I dunno, _weird_. I put it in your hammock and found it in mine the next day. I thought it wanted to be returned – right? or we wouldn’t be here –” he says, with a wave between them as if to indicate the hand that destiny has had in their reunion, “but it won’t let me just _give_ it to you.”

Gable seems to contemplate this for a minute. The ship sways one way, and then the other, and then they reach their hand towards him. “Can we try?”

“I thought we were going to play for it,” Travis says.

Gable shrugs. “I wanna try.”

Travis sighs and reaches into his pocket where the okus resides. “Fine. But I’m telling you it won’t work.”

He extracts the luminary handkerchief and unfolds it to reveal the triple okuses inside – one is unenchanted and solely for play, the other is a wooden raven that is gifted with a memory, and the other… the other is Gable’s.

Travis plucks the metal dove from the collection, and feels the familiar whisper of name and fire and rage flow through him as he tucks the others away.

He must have closed his eyes under the sensation because when he opens them Gable is looking at him with a curious expression.

“What?” he snaps defensively, and deliberately pries his fingers away from it so he can hold it out towards Gable in the palm of his hand. It’s just an okus. Whatever.

Gable hesitates. “You looked…”

Travis glares.

“Never mind,” they murmur, and reach out their hand towards the okus.

Travis watches as their fingers hover above the bird, leaning down to capture it, when, suddenly, the ship _rolls_.

Travis hears a crack of lightning or a crack of wood. He is thrown from the bench. Something crashes into him, pushing him back against the cabin wall and pinning him in place. Bottles are upturned, crew members are shouting, and the ship is still _moving_. Boxes splinter. Glasses shatter. All around him is chaos.

Then, as quickly as it began, the chaos stops.

The ship returns to its sway in the breeze. Around him lies splintered wood and fallen crewmates and more debris than he knew the ship could produce. Gable lies sprawled against the cabin wall, conscious, but furious. A bleeding wound on their head and on their right hand – the hand that was reaching for the okus – a dark burn, presumably from a stray candle.

The okus.

Suddenly panicked, Travis searches his surroundings for the okus, his fingers growing slick with blood as they fumble and snag on the debris in his wake. His frantic movements are hampered by the wooden table pinning him against the wall and he begins to panic that the okus may have been lost for good. But then, his hand falls to his breast pocket, and he feels the familiar shape of the dove inside. His eyes squeeze shut and his head falls back against the splintered wall. Relief is the only thing he feels, even though he knows that’s wrong. “Fuck,” he says. “ _Fuck_.”

Gable groans from the floor as Travis extracts the okus and lets the familiar name speak to him. Gable doesn’t seem very happy at all. “If you say ‘I told you so’ I’ll dump you at the next port.”

Travis laughs and keeps twirling the okus in his fingers – _Uriel, Uriel, Uriel_ –

“You don’t _want_ to give it back, do you?”

Gable’s soft voice penetrates through the vision and Travis snaps his hand around the okus protectively before stuffing it back out of sight. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he sneers. “Of course I want to give it back, it’s given me nothing but trouble, as you can _tell_ ,” he says, voice dripping with disdain as he indicates the carnage around them. “You can have it as soon as we find out _how_.”

“Fine,” Gable snaps, sending a flurry of wood flying as they extract themselves from the debris.

“ _Fine_ ,” Travis retorts, kicking uselessly at the table that traps him.

Gable rolls their eyes and effortlessly lifts the damn thing. Travis struggles to his feet and Gable carelessly deposits the table beside them with a ‘thud’. “So,” they say, examining Travis with narrowed eyes as he brushes himself down. “I guess we’re fine then.”

Travis tilts his head high as he crouches to collect his luminary cards, miraculously still bound together with ribbon. Except for one card. One that seems to have fallen in the disarray. It lies flat on the dusty ground face-down but Travis doesn’t need to see the artwork to know what it is.

“Don’t you dare –” Travis says as Gable stoops to collect it. “Don’t you dare pick up that card.”

Gable pauses, looking at him with a furrowed brow. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“Oh no, I _know_ what it is,” Travis says, swiping the damn thing and shuffling it back in the deck. He catches sight of the pale pink background, the halo of light, and, worst of all, the joined hands. “I know what it is and it’s almost as bothersome as your shitty okus, thank you very much. Now leave me alone and go bother someone else.”

“Travis –”

“Good _bye_ , Gable.”

–

They try playing for it and Travis always wins. Travis tries passing it to them, skin on skin for minutes, but the okus grows so hot that it burns Gable’s hand. Travis tries hurling it at them only for the damn thing to bounce against Gable’s hand and back into his own.

After a century of envisioning the moment that he returned Gable’s okus, he’d never once imagined that it wouldn’t _work_. He can’t lose it. He can’t trade it. He can’t even _give_ it away – not even to its owner. The okus, it seems, is his to keep.

–

They sit side-by-side against the room of a tavern, panting for breath, having tried every conceivable way to return the okus during the last two weeks.

“Maybe it’s like you said,” Gable reasons, nodding towards the familiar metal in his hands, “it belongs to you now. My soul has become yours.”

“Then I ought to be able to barter it like any other.”

“Hmm… maybe… Did she enchant it?”

“To do _what_ exactly? Bind me to the most annoying creature on Spéir? The one destined to ask me stupid question after stupid question? Because if so, it worked.”

“I’m trying to _help_ , Travis. You say you want rid of this thing but it’s clearly not going to let you until you work out what it wants. Maybe it wants something from you? Like a sacrifice? Maybe there’s something that you’re meant to learn from it? What did you say that you see again?”

“I dunno,” Travis shrugs, falling against Gable’s side with exhaustion. They’re warm, actually, it’s kinda nice. “Fire. Rage. Eyes. Judgement. The name, obviously –”

“Which it won’t let you speak.”

“Nope,” Travis agrees, because obviously they tried that and it didn’t work. “And, I dunno, I suppose there’s a strange feeling underneath. Like hurt, or sadness. And there’s glimpses of a street and a boy but it never holds still long enough for me to see it.”

“Hmm,” Gable says, twisting their mouth in thought, perhaps trying to locate the stolen memories. “That sounds familiar. I think I remember that.”

“Whoop-de-fucking-do,” Travis mutters, kicking Gable with his boots.

This was bullshit. This was all such utter bullshit.

VII.

Another thing that annoys Travis about Gable is how _attractive_ they are.

He barely noticed at first because they were just so _annoying_ but as their friendship grows so does his awareness of Gable’s attractiveness until he’s practically drooling at this seven-foot, very muscular, angelic being with their soft hair billowing in the breeze, and who could, quite literally throw him against the wall and have their way with him. That doesn’t normally do it for Travis but Gable is… _well_. He’s definitely thought about it, and has wasted far too many nights trying to recall exactly what was between their legs that day on the beach – not that it matters, of course, he just wants his fantasies to be _accurate_. He’s pretty sure he remembers an appadange of some kind and that it wasn’t anything particularly weird but he doesn’t know for sure and that _irks_ him.

Another thing that irks him is just how easily Gable seems to gain admirers in every town they visit. Something that shouldn’t be at all possible given how terrible they are flirting. Travis will watch from the sidelines, utterly bemused, as Gable flusters at being called ‘cute’ and proceeds to ramble their way through an asinine conversation before the admirer leaves even more charmed than before. He doesn’t understand it one whit but the sight infuriates him for some reason.

“It’s an act, right?” Travis asks, after they’ve left the premises of the most recent admirer.

“Huh?”

“The awkward, rambling, mess that you call flirtation. It’s an act, yes?”

“No, I –”

“They see this big, strong, skyjack coming at them – attractive, for sure, but also mildly terrifying – so you put on this shy awkward schoolgirl thing to disarm them. It’s very clever, really. Until you open your big dumb mouth that is –”

“Hey!” Gable cuts in, offended.

“And they _realise_ ,” Travis continues, “that there’s nothing between those big ‘ld ears of yours but empty space –”

“There is – that’s not –”

“Oh no, that’s very true, but not my point here –”

“Then what point are you trying to make, Travis?”

“That you…” he waves his hands before him to indicate Gable’s whole _deal_. “That it’s an act!”

“It’s not an act.”

“Oh, really? So if I told you that I found you attractive – hypothetically, of course, because I obviously _don’t_ –” he covers quickly, although he feels it’s not quick enough as a blush spreads across Gable’s cheeks “– that you would…” he trails off when he realises his point is mute. Gable is blushing, their eyes are averted, and they are biting their lip like a coy teenager… “Huh,” Travis says. “Not an act then.”

He wishes he never asked. He wishes he never acknowledged it.

He can’t deny that he feels a connection to Gable. One that stretches back as far as he can remember. One that is growing stronger every day. But, for as long as the okus remains in his possession, he cannot be sure whether it is his will that binds them, or destiny.

He’s not sure if he wants to find out.

VIII.

Shit goes sideways after that, as it always does. Long story short: their Captain is now a zombie and it may or may not be their fault. Look. It was a _day_. These things happen.

And then, for some reason, Travis ends up falling asleep at daybreak, tucked under Gable’s arm somewhere in the Captain’s quarters.

He doesn’t remember the last time he was held. He doesn’t want to because he knows it was likely with Margaret and he doesn’t want to think about Margaret.

His thoughts fade into dreams, fade into memories, and then there’s deep brown eyes blinking at him and a warm hand resting on his.

 _Margaret_.

“Don’t be afraid,” she says, as she passes him the deck. “Whatever card you choose will be a blessing.”

“Why do I doubt that?” Travis mutters under his breath.

“You wanted to know how to return the okus. The luminaries will tell you. Any card you choose will be an answer. A way forward. A blessing. You will see.”

She isn’t smiling as much as she does – _did_ – in real life. He misses it. Her eyes are twinkling just the same but her expression is absent. Travis decides he doesn’t like this unsettling dream.

“Fine,” he snaps, and cuts the deck.

He expects it to be the River (dreams with Margaret always end with the river) but, no, it’s the Union.

Travis sighs with annoyance as Margaret takes the card from him and places it on the floor. “Look at the card. What do you see?”

“The usual useless prediction,” Travis says with a dismissive wave of his hands. “The hands, the light, the…” but then, he squints. Margaret’s deck is different from his. The positioning is different. There are _four_ hands on hers – both hands of each person reaching out to surround something rectangular in the middle. His card. That’s his Union card. And in the very centre of the card is a halo of light and… a bird. The okus.

Travis watches as he becomes the man on the card. Across him sits Gable, bathed in light. They are holding each other’s hands, surrounding the card on the floor between them. Travis squints into the light, down onto the card, and makes out the metal wings of the dove, twitching. Travis watches in awe as okus rises between them; it’s wings flapping, it’s harsh edges growing softer until it takes flight between them and becomes one with the light.

Margaret’s voice ringing in his head: _Don’t you see? A way forward. A blessing. There is always knowledge to be found in the luminaries._

_–_

Travis startles awake and fumbles for his cards in a state of panic. Gable jerks awake beside them, watching his manic motions with sleepy eyes. “Travis, what are you doing?”

“Looking for the – ah ha!” he exclaims upon his success, extracting the Union from the deck. His excitement soon fades when he sees the well-thumbed edges of the cards and the well worn print of two hands on a pink background. His card, not Margaret’s. The last hazy edges of the dream come to an end.

“What is it?” Gable’s large hand on his shoulder stirs him from his misery as he stares at the card in his hand. The warm contact spreads through him until he feels a flicker of hope stir in his chest.

“I want to try something,” he muses. “I think we have to do it together.”

Gable sighs as Travis extracts the okus from his pocket. “We’ve tried holding it together and I still felt nothing –”

“Because I wasn’t doing it right. It doesn’t want to be _returned_ , Gable, it wants to be _seen_. It wants to be understood.”

Travis places the card on the floor with the okus in the centre like he saw in the dream and then holds his hands out towards Gable.

Gable hesitates, looking between him and the okus with palpable scepticism.

Travis refuses to beg, but he keeps his arms outstretched, waiting for Gable to come to him as they always do.

“Fine,” Gable grumbles, and begrudgingly puts their hands in his.

Almost immediately they are engulfed in light. But not magical light. _Flames_.

–

He can feel the heat on his skin and the smoke in his lungs. All around him are flames. And – distant screaming. He stands in the alley. There are footsteps behind him. He is afraid. Tears on his cheeks, evaporated by the heat.

Sparks. A trail of sparks against the ground. The sound of metal on rock and fire erupting from the contact.

Afraid. He looks up and sees fire. Fire with a thousand eyes.

 _Uriel_ , he knows. This is Uriel.

–

There is a boy in front of them. Wide eyes. Tears. A fork in the path. The boy should be saved. And behind him… people that should not be.

Judgement surges through them and turns to action without thought. The father screams. Guilty of many sins. The flame consumes him and his mistress into ashes.

This is the Sovereign's revenge but they do not feel it. They do not feel much of anything anymore.

They try to speak something to the boy, to tell him that there is a path he must take but all that sounds is a high pitched whistle that wraps around them both as the fire continues to burn.

 _William_ , they know. This boy is William, but not for long. He has a long path before him, and for some reason, it seems connected with their own.

–

“Uriel,” Travis gasps, speaking the name for the first time.

“William,” Gable responds in kind.

The circle of their hands has been broken. Gable cradles his cheek; he’s fallen into their arms. It’s comforting. And safe. Until Travis realises that it should be nothing of the sort.

Travis pushes them away with the heel of their hand. “You killed them.”

“I saved _you_.”

Travis sneers and yanks the Union from between them. The centre of the card is charred black and the okus has vanished. He shakes his head in disbelief as he stands and pockets the luminary, furious at Gable for the path that they forced him to take.

“They deserved to die,” Gable says, or rather, _Uriel_ does – in that hard-edged voice that Travis detests so much. “And you deserved to live. I was an angel. I passed judgement. It’s what I _did_.”

“Fuck you, Gable. Fuck _you_.”

IX.

Travis is dying. He’s pretty sure he’s dying and all because of a stupid bird contest that they just _had_ to enter. They never should have come to Burza Nyth. But, Gable is here and holding his hand (is that a hand?) and whispering things to him that aren’t always entirely mean and that’s kinda nice.

“Gable?” Travis asks, slurring his words as they look up at them. He huffs a laugh. They really do look like an angel like this. All bathed in candlelight. They must have been talking for hours by now but it feels like minutes. He feels like he’s floating on Gable’s soft words and Gable’s gentle hands.

“Yes, Travis?” they ask, and he thinks he feels their hand in his hair. If he has hair. He’s not sure what he is right now. A bird? He hopes that he still has a head. It would be sad otherwise.

“Did you know what would happen?”

“When?” they ask, stroking him again. It’s pleasant. He purrs into it.

“When you… saw me in… the place with the fire…”

He hears Gable’s hitched breath and knows that they understand.

“Did you know that I would… be like this, and serve _her_ , and lose…” _Margaret_. Even in this dreamlike moment, he cannot bring himself to say her name. “Did you know?”

“Was that why you were angry with me?” Gable asks, suddenly sounding far too awake for this conversation.

Travis shushes them the best he can and leans into their touch. “Did you know?”

“No,” Gable says, obediently falling back into their soft voice. “I just knew you had a choice. I had a choice. And one of them would be good.”

“‘Fork in the path’,” Travis recalls from their shared memory.

“Mmm hmm.”

“Hey, which do you think this is?” Travis slurs, blinking up at their big dumb eyes. “Am I… good? Is this the good path?”

Gable licks their lips. Travis’s eyes follow the movement for some reason. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m… good. I mean. A lot of bad stuff happened. But I got you. And that’s okay. And we do good stuff. Sometimes. I mean, I think we’re the good guys?”

“We’re the good guys,” Gable confirms.

“Right. So it’s okay.”

Gable huffs. For a moment, all there is is warmth and touch and distant pain, and then Gable says, “I am sorry, you know, for that day.”

“You had no choice,” Travis says. “I understand. I know you didn’t want to.”

“Oh,” Gable says, actually sounding surprised.

“I could feel it… in the okus? That’s why I liked it so much. You hurt like I hurt. Do you remember why you hurt so much?”

Gable shakes their head. It blurs, too fast for Travis to see it. “No. Not yet. I sense it though. I think I’ll know soon.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m kinda sad I don’t have it anymore.”

“What?”

“The okus.”

“Oh.”

“It kept me company,” Travis explains. “I hated it. Like I hate you. But it was nice. Something constant. It was nice. And now it’s gone.”

“You have me,” Gable reassures, squeezing his hand – if that’s his hand. “Isn’t that kind of the same thing?”

Travis shakes his head. “No. You’ll leave. People always leave and there’s no magic now. Nothing to keep us bound. So, now you’ll leave, and I’ll be alone again.”

“I don’t have to leave,” Gable says, but it sounds far away. “I could stay.”

“Hmm? What was that?”

“Stay awake, Travis,” Gable says, shaking his shoulder. Travis groans in annoyance. He was just drifting to sleep. “It’s not sunrise yet.”

“Oh, right,” Travis recalls. “I’m dying. What were we talking about?”

There’s a pause. He hopes Gable hasn’t left him. “Gable?”

Their stupid fuzzy head comes into view and it looks weird. Wet. But angels don’t cry. “Nothing,” Gable says with a bob of their throat. “We were talking about tomorrow, that’s all.”

“Oh. Okay. Tomorrow. Cool.”

Gable smiles, all soft and sad, and strokes their hand through his hair – if that is his hair – that’s nice. “Okay. We’ll talk about tomorrow.”

X.

“You kissed me,” Travis accuses as they lean against the bow of the ship. Nordia is disappearing into the clouds and the Uhuru finally sails to new lands. He was going to find another way to broach this conversation but he’s long since learned that the best way to speak to Gable is _directly_.

“Uh. I was not. Not myself. In battle. It was, a, uh, an instinct. It means nothing. Forget it.”

“Sure,” Travis says, tapping his fingers against the wood. “I’m sure it’s just… Margaret’s magic, you know? Threads binding us together.”

“Right,” Gable says, latching onto the excuse. “Like the okus.”

“Right. Like the okus. It’s always magic with us. Fates bound. Yadda yadda.”

“Right.”

Travis taps his fingers again, tilting his hand towards the starless sky, and then down to the being that fell from them. _Fuck_ , they’re pretty. The memory of the kiss comes back to him... the warmth of it… like a fire burning in his belly, like their big stupid hands on his heart. “It wasn’t the worst though.”

“Huh?”

“The kiss,” Travis shrugs. “I didn’t _mind_ it exactly.”

“Right.”

“I just think that we ought to have some say in our future, don’t you?”

Gable blinks and shakes their head, looking down at him with confusion. “I’m sorry, what are you saying?”

“I don’t know,” Travis admits, looking back out at the passing clouds.

“Are you saying…” Gable hazards, “that I could kiss you again?”

“I don’t know,” Travis retorts with a smirk. “Could you? Or would you get neck strain? I’m certainly not going to be the one standing on tippy toes every time you feel like following your _instincts_.”

“Right now my ‘instinct’ is to throw you off this ship,” Gable mutters.

Travis grins, content in the knowledge that some things, at least, never change. “Well, by all means, go ahead. I won’t stop you. I’m sure fate will find a way to dump me at your feet again. Maybe I’ll turn into a bird halfway down and shit on your head in revenge.”

“Urgh. Gross.” Gable shakes their head and turns towards him again with a frown. “It’s weird seeing you human at night. I can’t get over it.”

“You could get _under_ it.”

Gable gapes. “ _Travis_ _Middle-name Matagot_ –”

Travis laughs at their outrage and leans against the taffrail, oddly pleased when Gable doesn’t extract their hand from underneath it. He casts his gaze up at them cautiously, gauging the sincerity that might lie underneath. Margaret has prised all sorts of secrets from him this week. He’s sure that she’s done the same to Gable. He wonders if the acknowledgement of _this_ is as close to the surface for Gable as it is for him.

“It’s nice,” Gable says eventually. “To know that we’re in this together for a little while longer.”

“No thanks to you,” Travis retorts. “I was very nearly mortal you know. Mortal and _pissed_. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me –”

“You wanted to be mortal!” Gable exclaims. “I wasn’t going to take that away from you!”

“You are such a big dumb angel-brained idiot sometimes that I just –”

“What?!”

“There was no point being mortal unless _you_ were mortal,” he says, jabbing them in the chest. Or abs. Their chest is hard to reach. “I wasn’t just going to _leave_ you. Fuck. Gable. We made a _promise_.”

“We did,” Gable says guiltily.

“And I thought that promise went _both_ ways. You told me once. In Burza Nyth. You offered to stay. I thought you meant it.”

“I… didn’t know you remembered that.”

Travis folds his arms defensively. “Well, I did. So, either we’re mortal together, or _immortal_ together, or whatever-we-are together, as long as we’re _together_. Just like I told you in Nordia. Before you kissed me. I don’t know what’s so hard about the word ‘together’ that’s so hard for you to understand.”

Gable stares at him with wide eyes and shallow breath. Travis blushes, as the weight of his words echo in his ears. There’s a confession there if Gable was to hear it.

Travis leans away from the taffrail, leaving the warmth of Gable behind. He murmurs, eyes cast down to the ground, “but I guess you just don’t feel the same way so –”

There is a hand on his wrist, and then another at his waist, and then Gable is kissing him deep and hard and fucking _majestically_.

“Oh shit, was that okay?” Gable asks when they break for air. “Sorry, I, I meant to ask, but you were –”

Travis – despite his previous reservations – stands on tip toes to grab Gable’s neck and yank them back down into the kiss.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Gable whispers against his lips when they finally part. “If you want me to stay, I’ll stay. I’ll be your okus. Your constant.”

“A constant pain in my ass, you mean.”

Gable opens their mouth to retort so Travis claims their mouth again to silence them. The action is addictive now that he’s had a taste.

“You mean it this time?” Travis asks the next time they’re parted, tilting his head and seeing not just Gable looking down at him but _Uriel_ as well. “You’ll stay?”

“Yes,” Gable says earnestly, nodding as if speech weren’t enough. “I’m… sorry. I’m sorry I broke our promise, and I’m sorry I broke _you_.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what you said to Margaret before all this happened. You said I broke you. That it was all my fault. Because I killed your parents, because I set you on this path, because I gave you that okus... I understand if you can’t forgive me for what I’ve done.”

Travis sighs at Gable’s ability to ruin even the horniess of moments with their self-flagellating nonsense. “It’s okay,” Travis says, twisting his fingers in that soft hair just because he _can_. “You said it’s the good path. I want to believe you. We’re on the good path.”

Gable nods against him; the movement brushing their lips together once more. “Yeah,” Gable says, the next time Travis lets them leave. “I think we’re on the good path.”

Travis smiles as he watches the night sky with human eyes and feels Gable strong and steady beside him. He may have lost the okus but he gained something else, something that he hopes will be just as constant.


End file.
